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On Design: Sandy Chilewich

On Design: Sandy Chilewich

Sandy Chilewich is a textile design entrepreneur whose revolutionary and very organic-looking outdoor fabrics are actually made of woven PVC, so they wipe clean. With unlikely, inelegant materials, Chilewich designs the cutting edge by happy accident. For example, her top-selling RayBowls for MoMA Design Store were an experiment using leftover pantyhose (she founded Hue fashion hosiery). Now, Chilewich has turned to the garden for inspiration for her latest rugs, placemats and upholstery fabrics.

Q. You rediscovered vinyl in an unlikely place.

A. Yes, the webbing on 1950s lawn chairs!

Q. And it was all by accident?

A. I tried it for my RayBowls, and it didn’t work at all. But I loved the feel of it, and we’ve adapted it now for rugs.

Q. Yours must be the world’s first woven wood-grain-patterned PVC.

A. I see the irony. But I wanted to interpret something as organic as walnut grain in vinyl. We’re introducing chipboard next.

Q. And I saw tulips on the studio floor.

A. We’ve just done grasses. Next, we’re experimenting with huge blow-up botanicals for rugs that are not corny, still modernist.